


Sweat and Primer

by futureboy (PokeRowan)



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: After Party, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Theatre, Background Relationships, Blow Jobs, Hand Jobs, I love them all so much wtf, Jeremy just needs a bit of self-esteem in general tbh, M/M, Meg's an amazing friend, Ryan's socially graceless, Singing, background Mavinseg, hinted at Gus/Geoff, safe sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-03
Updated: 2017-07-08
Packaged: 2018-11-13 17:24:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 15,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11189844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PokeRowan/pseuds/futureboy
Summary: Ryan, cast as the classy Detective Pollard in an original college musical, is intimidated by the daunting prospect of his first proper solo. It’s a good job the guy one dorm over encourages his shower singing.[Lead Actor/Tech Guy College!AU.]





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> [RPF disclaimer: Written according to guidelines set by RT employees (to the best of my knowledge). This is a fictional series of events using characters inspired by real people.]
> 
> I honestly can't beleAF how long this took me to write. I'd super appreciate it if you let me know what you thought with a comment!! (Because hell, I'm super worried if it's just a load of old bollocks or not, omg.)
> 
> Enjoy these stupid shower boys.

“I’m bringing some friends over tonight, if that’s okay,” Ryan says.

Geoff splutters. “ _Friends?_ You have _friends?!_ ”

“…Fuck off.”

“No, no,” he says, sitting up from where he’s draped across their couch, “I wanna hear more about these friends--!”

“Leave him alone, Geoff, they’re gonna be better than your friends.” Gus, who’s eating a bowl of noodles in the corner, shoots him a look: “stop bringing over Jason if you’re gonna get high in the kitchenette, we’ve talked about this.”

“But the fire alarm in the hall’s so sensitive,” Geoff whines.

“Don’t care. Keep it to your disgusting bedroom.”

“Matt’s coming over, actually,” Ryan interjects. “We’re just gonna stay in here and talk about the production. Joel’s got some ideas about set design.”

“No drinking? It’s not for a party? You bring shame upon this household, Haywood,” Geoff admonishes.

“It’s student accommodation, there was shame here before I ever arrived.”

Honestly, if Geoff was going to be so theatrical about everything literally _all the damn time_ , Ryan was going to volunteer him to be a part of Matt and Joel’s stupid chorus.

“Stop singing in the shower,” Gus calls after him, when he leaves to return to his room. He thinks he catches Geoff calling him a _buzzkill_ and starting another argument, but he doesn’t stick around to see it through.

Ryan isn’t planning on stopping his shower-singing any time soon; Joel Heyman, in his infinite wisdom, seems to be under the impression that Ryan is going to be able to pull off a solo in this semester’s scriptwriting competition. To absolutely no-one’s surprise, he’s freaking out a little.

Which means a _shitload_ of singing. He’s got to practice, all the time, clearly.

He hasn’t got the score for any of the pieces yet – rehearsals start next week – but Ryan figures that the more frequently he carries a tune, the more he’ll get used to the burden. Lines are already hard enough to focus on when it comes to, y’know, _not flubbing them_ , and the obvious answer to his anxiety, his lack of experience, and his mind, full of half-memorised quotes, is to make it second nature.

There’s a second reason he’d never tell Geoff and Gus, though.

The layout of their building is designed to mirror the next dorm over, and dorms are separated by an internal fire door, which is always locked. Ryan’s room is on the end of their block, which means that his room is the reverse of the one next door to him. Though his bed is by the window, the wet room backs onto his unknown wall-partner’s side.

And someone keeps using the hot water at the same time as Ryan wants to shower.

This isn’t a problem. At first, yeah, it was kinda weird to know that some other student was naked at the same time as he was, separated only by tile and drywall, but then the production was cast. With news of his obligations came the singing, and the practicing, and so the Shakespeare he’d normally mutter to himself under the spray became random songs he’d heard that week.

Whoever had the room on the other side took it as a challenge.

Ryan’s learned a couple of things in the weeks since. Whoever it is has a masculine voice (possibly male, although if acting’s taught him anything, it’s that stuff’s not always as it obvious as it seems). He’s fond of Otherwise’s ‘[Soldiers](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p733z6aKwMA)’, Linkin Park’s ‘[Papercut](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjVkXlxsO8Q)’, and mostly enjoys practicing renditions of a rap that Ryan doesn’t recognise.

(This probably says more about Ryan than the person who’s rapping.)

And he doesn’t tell a soul. Not even Meg from programming class. And definitely not Gus, Geoff, or Jack – he doesn’t want to give the only guys he ever sees in his dorm that extra piece of information to tear into him with. It’s a good job his roommate unofficially moved out, too, because he _doubly_ hates the idea of sharing the bathroom now.

“Hello? Ryan? Stop thinking about jerking off, man, we gotta focus.”

Ryan flushes. “I wasn’t thinking about jerking off.”

Joel and Matt laugh at how seriously he takes the off-hand remark; they’re sprawled across Ryan’s couch, surrounded by annotated scripts and extensive notes. Though Geoff’s off somewhere smoking, probably, and Gus has crawled into his room to study, Geoff’s roommate Jack is in the corner of the kitchenette on his laptop.

“Is this stage stuff? Are you jerking it on stage, Ryan?”

“No,” Ryan says patiently, “I’m a detective from before the Jazz Age. I’m tracking the criminal Valentina sisters, on a train. That’s why it’s called ‘Express’. And then a red diamond gets stolen from some rich lady. Me and her security guards are rivals in finding it.”

“It’s also a musical,” Matt adds.

“A _musical_? That’s not your usual style, Joel.”

“No, it’s not,” Joel tells Jack, and it’s evident that he’s not very happy about directing it: “it’s kind of… a favor for a friend. There’s a competition, and she wrote the music too, and… it’s a whole thing.”

“You’d better buy _a semester’s worth_ of lunch bags,” Jack snorts, nodding at Ryan, “because Joel’s gonna be hyperventilating every other minute, at the rate he’s going now.”

“I’ll be fine!” Joel retorts, and it clearly isn’t true in the slightest.

Despite this, Ryan’s looking forward to performing in a production that’s never been shown before, even if it is a college student’s competition piece. He’s going to play Frederick Pollard, a member of the Pinkerton Detective Agency, who’s keeping tabs on the sibling thief pair Carmen and Ellis Valentina. And when a diamond worth ten million dollars is stolen from Lady Dorian, everyone on board their cross-country train journey is put on lockdown. Her security guards, Weston and Jessop, think that Pollard’s investigating because of the reward.

Ryan feels pretty good about the fact that Pollard just wants to put away the Valentinas, for good, rather than accept Dorian’s money. It’s as if through his understanding of this, he somehow knows his character better, which is both very satisfying and very comforting; it distracts him from his solo.

“Who’ve you got for the set?” asks Jack.

“It’s all being drawn up now,” Matt grins. “Marcus and Max are on it. I thought Marcus was gonna drop dead when I asked him, he was so excited.”

Ryan’s only met Max once or twice, but on the occasions where they’ve shared a production before, they’ve shared a couple of _heterosexual nonsense_ eye-rolls before. ( _-Ugh, this is so straight. -I know, right?_ They were moments of solidarity he needed, especially when Max had been on props for ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ and Ryan, in the lead role, had been subjected to the most complicated Shakespearean wedding organisation he’d ever encountered.)

Matt flicks through some notes and frowns: “I don’t know who’s on light and sound, though. I hope you were sorting that out, Joel, because I sure as hell haven’t--”

“Yeah, already done it. Don’t worry,” Joel butts in. “I asked Nina and Eddie and they said yeah.”

“Eddie?” Ryan mutters dubiously. “He’s a bit…”

“A bit _what_?”

“Flaky,” he mumbles.

“I know,” Joel sighs, “but everyone else is already on board for the other competition pieces, and John K can’t commit to it, so he was the only other viable option. Eddie’s gonna have to do.”

Jack laughs quietly into his keyboard from the corner, and Ryan gets it – it’s hard to stay upbeat about a project when Joel’s in charge, because the guy is basically Eeyore, and he’s never approached _anything in his life_ with pep and optimism.

Ryan’s gonna try anyway.

 

* * *

 

The next morning, he drags himself out of bed at eight AM and crawls into the shower. The guy on the other side of the tile is already showering, apparently, if the rapid spoken-word is anything to go by.

_Bitter words, coming in, bitter words on bitter skin…_

He doesn’t recognise it. Go figure.

Ryan turns on the spray just as the other guy finishes up, calls out fragments of [The Sweater Song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHQqqM5sr7g) periodically, as per his ‘singing every day’ resolution; he pulls on a random t-shirt from the pile by his bed, and trudges to his lecture on whatever programming language he’s meant to have read the introduction for this week.

It’s Python, and he’s pretty comfortable with Python already, so he spends most of the hour messaging Meg from the other side of the hall.

They go for coffee afterwards - and by that, Ryan means that Meg orders coffee and a cupcake, and he sits with a bottle of soda, listening to her talk about costumes and dancing and singing and whatever creative project she’s working on at this point in the semester. He likes listening to her stories a lot, and he likes _Meg_ a lot. She’s one of those people who can pick up on communication regardless as to whether or not it’s verbal. God knows Ryan doesn’t say much, and never really has done when he’s comfortable in a friendship, but he always tries to give something back to Meg.

“How’s Gavin?” he asks.

She smiles so widely that her eyes crinkle up; she has froth on the side of her top lip. “He’s good,” she beams, “ _we’re_ good. He’s practically moved in now, he makes me breakfast before his classes.”

Ryan huffs with laughter. That sounds like Gavin. Imposing, but all sweet-like.

“I think he’s going to hang out with the rest of your dorm sometime this week, actually... I’m sure you’ll see him at some point. He has loads of work to do, so _naturally_ , he’s not spending a whole lot of time doing it.”

“Your boyfriend’s an asshole.”

“Tell me about it,” Meg grins. She wipes the latte froth away with her knuckles. “Wish I could throw it back at ya, but… Ryan Haywood is an independent thespian who don’t need no man, I guess?”

Ryan makes a disgruntled noise, and mutters, “guys don’t _like_ actors. We tend to be prissy bitches.”

“You’re not, though,” she points out, “you’re a bit bratty sometimes, but you’re never prissy.”

“Wow. Thanks.”

Meg ignores him. “You just need to show someone you like that you’ve not as… _reserved_ as you come across like. That you’ve got a bit of character outside of who you’re playing on stage.”

“So you’re saying I’m boring?” he mumbles.

And Meg looks kindly at him, and lets him steal away the butterfly-shaped icing from the top of her cupcake: “no, Ry,” she says kindly. “I’m saying that you gotta show people how ridiculously _interesting_ you are.”

 

* * *

 

The next few days progress steadily – Ryan sings in the shower in the morning, fills the gaps in his schedule with his prep work for class, and runs through his lines before bed. The routine helps him memorise everything faster. Plus, it’s quite nice to be able to curl up in his blankets whilst flicking through the script.

He gets in after class on Wednesday afternoon to find Geoff cooking bacon with all the windows closed.

“Hey, Ryan. You got some hate mail.”

Ryan battles through the oil smoke, reaches over Geoff’s head, and switches on the ventilation hood. “What the hell does that mean?”

“It means, asshole, that someone crammed a note through the sealed fire door addressed to ‘The Guy Who Sings In The Shower’. Next dorm over must be getting as sick of your karaoke sessions as we are.”

Huh. Sure enough, Geoff flails an arm at the table, where a battered piece of paper lies, crumpled and sad. The outside reads exactly as Geoff told him, but the inside isn’t explicitly hate mail at all:

 

 _TO THE GUY WHO SINGS IN THE SHOWER –_  
_[NEW ORDER](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ahU-x-4Gxw) AND WEEZER’S FIRST ALBUM? DO YOU KNOW ANYTHING FROM THIS CENTURY? _  
_\- THE GUY WHO RAPS_

 

The curly penmanship softens the all caps. (And the possible New Order blow. ‘Age of Consent’ is a great song.)

“You should send ‘em something back,” Geoff says, with far too much enthusiasm, “let’s start a rivalry.”

“I’m _not_ doing that,” Ryan tells him firmly, and leaves before his clothes start to smell too strongly of bacon.

Writing back was an idea, though.

 

 _To the guy who raps in the shower –_  
_Is that a criticism or a request? We’re not about to duet Linkin Park, I’m afraid_  
_\- the guy who sings_

 

He forces it through the gap in the hinges, where assumedly the first one had come through, and retreats to his room to learn his lines some more. The first readthrough was on Saturday, and after that, they’d be rehearsing it on stage with stage directions – he didn’t want to be the actor who still had a script in his hand the week before opening, so it was better to get it over with now.

The Guy Who Raps owns a guitar, and is practicing something heavy-sounding.

It’s quite nice, all muffled through the wall like that. He’s never been able to study or learn in silence, so he flops upside down on his mattress and lets the blood rush to his head.

 _And who might you be?_ “…Detective Pollard, of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency. I’m here on business – tailing a suspect duo, don’t you know--” _The_ _Pinks_ _? God help us, Lincoln’s been dead for fifty years!_

His mind wanders. Ryan doesn’t listen to a lot of music, let alone recent music. He mostly steals other people’s music tastes, and that’s what his shower discography has been so far – songs stolen from the people around him playing them during the day.

What was that dance track the guys had played during their last party? The one he’d actually noticed because he liked it? Maybe Meg would use it in a routine sometime.

His alarm goes off at seven fifty AM the next day, and he prepares to sound really fucking dumb in the bathroom. Thank Christ for his auditory memory and his practicing, because after playing it on repeat a few times, he kind of knew the words already.

“ _But if you let her see that[fancy footwork](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZKq2ptu7qw)… Show her that you’re not that shhhhyyyy…_ ”

 _‘Shy’_ has a wonderful glissando he can appreciate. Sure, Chromeo wasn’t music tailored to his vague theatrical training, but when you can apply tremolo to long notes, nothing sounds horrific. The acoustics from the tile are really lending a hand, too.

_“Let her see that fancy footwork…"_

He punctuates it with a little breath noise, and the spray judders as The Guy Who Raps gets in his shower.

_“Show you’re that. Type! Of! Guy!”_

He’s really not that type of guy at all. Ryan wouldn’t dream of doing anything like this, if they weren’t separated in the way that they are. There’s no chance of them meeting, to be fair – nobody uses the doors even when there’s a fire alarm going off – and to be honest, it’s nice to practice _at_ someone than simply singing to himself.

It starts the day off cheerily, too. He almost wants to keep on singing when he walks to his class on tragic plays… And that just wouldn’t be appropriate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Songs in this chapter:
> 
> Otherwise - Soldiers  
> Linkin Park - Papercut  
> Weezer - The Sweater Song  
> New Order - Age of Consent  
> Chromeo - Fancy Footwork


	2. Chapter 2

“Are you… Are you humming _Linkin Park?_ ”

“No,” says Ryan, too quickly.

“Shut up, you totally are! I didn’t peg you as a Linkin Park kinda guy, Ryan,” Meg chatters, and almost flicks him with the end of the tape measure in her excitement.

“But you pegged him?” asks Gus. Geoff chokes on a mouthful of beer.

They’re all congregated in the kitchenette again, and by all, this isn’t limited to only Ryan’s dorm. Meg came over to help him get measurements for his character’s costume, but Geoff, Jack, Gus, and Meg’s boyfriend Gavin were sprawled around drinking, and waiting for more people to join them, too.

“You better not have done,” Gavin warns.

Meg props up one of Ryan’s arms and tightens the tape measure in some sort of warning. “I’d ask your permission first, babe. Don’t worry.”

“What about _my_ permission?” Ryan points out, and is subsequently ignored by everyone in the room when Gavin interjects with one of his absurd either-or questions.

“Would you rather get pegged or do the pegging?”

Jack rolls his eyes. “Oh, give over, Gavin, that one’s easy--”

“Yeah, you’re right,” he winces, “hang on, lemme change it. Uh. Okay, would you rather… get shagged in the arse, but by an average dick--”

“Christ, Gavin.”

“-- _or_ , give a blowjob to a huge dick?”

“Is there money involved?” asks Gus.

“Yeah, why not.”

“Then I’m taking the money and running.”

“That wasn’t an option!” Gavin squawks, and Ryan’s just thinking that he wants to preserve his voice, and would probably go with the pegging, when Burnie arrives with a friend in tow.

“Hey, assholes.”

“'Sup!” yells Gavin’s angry friend, whose name is escaping Ryan right now. (Is he dating Lindsay Tuggey? Ryan’s sure he’s seen him outside of Gavin and Geoff’s circle when he’s been hanging out with Meg.)

This is the kind of situation where Ryan can’t tell if they’re already tipsy or not, because he doesn’t have enough personal experience with being tipsy to draw a comparison. Meg must see the panic in his eyes, because she takes his collar measurements speedily and sends him on his way.

“You’re all done, Ryan!” she beams. “I’ll pass these on to the costume department for you.”

“Thanks, Meg,” he says sincerely. “Uh… I guess I’ll see you all later.”

There’s a rush of outcry and disappointment from everyone. “You aren’t staying?” Burnie asks.

“No, it’s… It’s not really my scene.”

“It’s okay,” Meg tells them, “when there’s a theater kids party, we’ll go to that one, instead. Maybe Ryan’ll be more comfortable then.”

“Maybe,” he mumbles. It’s actually pretty touching that they want him to hang out with them, but he gets kinda nervous around people he doesn’t know very well.

And when he has to dance…

 _And_ when he’s surrounded by booze.

Yeah, he’s gonna sit this one out.

“Have fun. And say hi to Lindsay for me,” he says quietly, nodding at them all. He retreats to his room as Gus and Geoff are musing over whether they can monetise Gavin’s stupid what-if scenarios, and a lyric pops into his head:

_[If you could](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjrUOlK2714) blow up the world with the flick of a switch… would you do it? _

And that’s _exactly_ what he sings in the shower the next morning. The Flaming Lips – that’s still this century, right? It’s all The Guy Who Raps is gonna be getting, though, because damn if Ryan isn’t running out of modern music he actually knows, or tolerates.

“ _With all youuurrr power_ ,” he trills, and hears a high-pitched cackle in response to his baritone rendition of it.

He grins wetly and rinses his hair out. This is actually getting kinda fun.

 

* * *

 

 **Matt Hullum:** **_Got your song, finally_ ** ****  
**The Long Game demo.mp3** **  
** **The Long Game without vocals.mp3**

 

Oh, _shit_. Time to stop fucking around and get on with it, it looked like. Five weeks until opening night, and he’s feeling better about the lines, but significantly more nervous about the singing.

Joel watches them run through Act One and gives them pointers. They have scripts in their hands, and Max and Marcus are working on fitting the set behind them, but it sort of feels like they’re getting somewhere with it.

“When we start rehearsing Act Two next week,” Eva calls down to Joel, “do Ryan and I have to kiss during the practice? Can we save it for the dress rehearsals?”

“Sure thing,” Joel shrugs. He’s in a pretty good mood today, apparently. At least, he’s not pulling out handfuls of his own hair. Yet.

Eva sighs with relief. She’s playing Jessop, one of the security guards hunting for the diamond; Jessop and Pollard strike up something of a romance over the course of the musical. “No offense, Haywood,” she grins, “but you know how it is...”

“You wanna kiss guys like I wanna kiss girls?” he asks quietly, and she titters.

“Come on, guys, focus. Can we go from page twenty-six?”

“ _Yeah_ , guys,” butts in Max from the back of the stage, “there’ll be plenty of time to be gay after the show wraps.”

“Marcus, please get your set-monkey under control.”

Ryan and Eva share a look and try not to laugh, as Joel reiterates the instruction to run from the top of the page. He feels safe, he thinks to himself on the walk home, and he listens to the MP3s Matt sent his way. Ryan feels safe because that’s the magic of acting – learning how to pretend gives you an opportunity to examine what’s real. Reality is that Ryan’s gay as hell, and Eva’s probably gayer, but at least they’re in this as a duo, and it’s not _too_ awkward.

He puts his solo on repeat and decides, in the safety of his room, that maybe he should be practicing songs a little more… showy.

The next week is full of inspiration. And not without special mention to Meg’s invitation to watch her practice the routine her dance group is working on. He steps around his room with purpose to ‘[Singin’ in the Rain](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1ZYhVpdXbQ)’, accompanying Gene Kelly’s warbling with his own shitty imitation; he gets distracted from his computer science material with the reprise of ‘[I’ll Cover You](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBSDjhK_YGU)’. He even gets caught, singing over the stove whilst he’s cooking, by Geoff – and manages to push aside his embarrassment to let him know that, yeah, _[Grease is the word](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gqiyqu1GVE)_.

Geoff wheezes, and cackles, and rubs a hand over his wayward stubble. “Jesus Christ, Ryan, you’re gonna kill me at this rate,” he weeps.

“I’ve been told I knock ‘em dead. Not sure how true that is, though.”

“Shut the fuck up, _professional male model_ , you’re gonna be killer on that stage.”

“Please stay home,” he mumbles.

“Are you kidding? We’re all getting tickets as soon as they‘re released. None of us are missing this for the damn world,” Geoff says gleefully, and Ryan can just _tell_ he’s never gonna escape the photos they’ll snap for the rest of his life.

At this point, it’s getting hard to be shy about it.

He smashes out ‘[Something’s Coming](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdUzDi-hs-I)’ bright and early the next morning, because Leonard Bernstein seems to have written male leads specifically for the future Ryan Haywood’s vocal range.

_“Come on, something - come on in, don't be shy! Meet a guy! Pull up a chair--"_

He gargles shower water to the tune of the bridge, and can hear The Guy Who Raps laughing uncontrollably. Maybe something great really is coming. There’s really no need for any Maria to waltz into his life, but at the same time, he wouldn’t exactly complain if one of the Jets does. As long as they’re someone a little more rugged than Richard Beymer, anyway.

_Who knows?_

Not Ryan, that’s for sure. Life’s throwing curveballs at the moment, and the only thing he knows for certain is that his friends are going to take pictures of him on stage when they aren’t allowed to. Such is life.

 

* * *

 

Joel is considerably more agitated at the next rehearsal. The costumes are coming along nicely, the set is actually ahead of schedule for completion, and the cast? Well, they’re on track with lines, choreography, and soundtrack.

Which meant it’s the tech crew who are a problem.

In fairness, Nina’s brilliant, and a hard worker to boot; it’s _Eddie_ who’s the problem.

Eddie is a competent guy, when he can be bothered to put the work in. In Ryan’s opinion (which he’d never voice so bluntly, mind you), he’s just not invested enough to do theater work. You had to know the characters, even in the tech department. You had to have an idea for the themes behind the script, and get a grasp on how each actor interpreted their role.

Eddie doesn’t even use gender neutral pronouns for the actor playing Ellis Valentina half the time. It’s not a good sign.

“--Look, I _can’t_ , man. I gotta study!”

“Study for what?” Joel snaps, “Your _beerology major?_   Get the fuck outta my sight. You made a commitment, and if you’re not gonna stick to it, I’ll do it myself.”

“I’m here tonight, I’m just not next week,” Eddie says, just as irritably. “Cool off, Heyman.”

Ryan can hear all of it from where he’s standing in audience space, despite the fact that the sound desk is at the rear of the hall. It’s hard not to feel uncomfortable when Joel stomps back towards the stage, clenching his jaw so tight he could turn limestone to diamond.

“Anything I can do?” he asks quietly.

Joel mutters to himself, and fiddles with his cuffs so viciously that Ryan’s sure he’s gonna tear the buttons clean off.

“We can try to find someone else for light and sound. You can’t do everything, Joel, you’ll drop dead by night two.”

“I know,” Joel says sharply. “I just--”

“Yeah. It’s crappy,” Ryan tells him sympathetically. “I’m pretty sure the person playing Ellis Valentina bet against Marcus on whether he’ll stay for the whole show.”

“Lexy bet against set design?”

“There’s twenty dollars in it, from what I heard.”

“ _Fuck_ ,” says Joel, and pulls out his cell phone. “Lexy’s always right. Fuck, fuckity fuck.”

He starts texting furiously. Ryan backs away.

“I’m just gonna…”

“Get on stage, for god’s sake,” Joel says, without looking away from his screen. “We’re doing Act Two, and it’s the last time I wanna see you mess up the choreography in the group number.”

 _It’s not gonna be the last time,_ Ryan thinks to himself.

He pulls himself up onto the stage anyway. Might as well get it over with.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Songs in this chapter:
> 
> The Flaming Lips - The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song  
> Gene Kelly - Singin' in the Rain  
> RENT Soundtrack (Collins & Company) - I'll Cover You (Reprise)  
> Frankie Valli - Grease  
> Jim Bryant - Something's Coming


	3. Chapter 3

Meg and her dance friends honestly scare the shit out of Ryan, and he’s not sure he can be blamed; after class the next day, he’s carted off to assess their latest routine. They want an honest opinion of their rehearsal. He’s not really the guy for the job, given that he doesn’t know many dance terms. Or know the music. Or knows what’s good or not.

“It… it looks nice,” he says lamely, and Mica Burton hits him on the arm.

“ _Ryan_. Were we all in time? Was the formation tight? _Did you like it?_ ”

He mulls it over.

“Long dark hair on the end was out of time, but I don’t recognise her, so I think she must be new to the group.”

“You mean Mariel?” Meg says, pointing at the other end of the dance hall.

“Yeah, that’s her… Mariel. I’ll remember that,” Ryan promises.

“She’s new this semester, yeah,” Mica confirms. “Kdin’s been practicing with her outside of rehearsal, she’s doing super good.”

“Kdin was good,” Ryan says, “and you all looked… spaced well?”

“You call yourself a theatre major,” Mica grins. “You’re definitely more helpful than Gavin, though, that’s for sure.”

“Hey, I do comedy and tragedy, not _musical dance stuff_ \--”

“Thank you, Ry,” Meg interrupts honestly, “it’s just kinda nice to know it doesn’t look like a total disaster.”

“I liked it. I liked the song.”

Meg’s eyes twinkle with glee. “ _Please_ come and see the performance. I’ll love you forever.”

“Of course I’m coming,” Ryan mumbles, and gets excitedly mobbed by his best friend. It’s the least he can do after Meg’s spent so much time listening to all his problems, academic or otherwise – and he hadn’t been lying. He really did like the routine, and the song. It’s a good job he has minimal choreography to learn for his own show. It’s more staging, thank god, than sweeping and stepping and whatever fucking crazy mid-air twists Meg’s used to providing an audience with.

Despite this, he still finds himself in the shower the next morning listening to his singing partner, and wondering which song he could challenge him ; it's impossible to theatrically dance to spoken word, if he's being honest with himself, and even the stuff that The Guy Who Raps can very tunefully shout is not the most graceful.

(“ _BECAUSE DAYS! COME AND GO! BUT MY FEELINGS FOR YOU ARE[FOREVER](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMidL_YL1Ys)\--_ ”)

And so Ryan stretches his vocal range with Meg’s fast-paced pop songs, and adds some more variation to his shower repertoire.

 _“[The black magic](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UB07RtvzbpI) of Mulholland Drive! _ ” he yells, “ _swimming pools under desert skies! Always on the hunt for a little more time--_ ”

Geoff throws something at the door to his room from in the hallway - from the loud bang, it was either a shoe or a book. Ryan smirks, and almost wants to continue just to piss him off a little more, but to his surprise:

“-- _Just another L.A. Devotee!_ ” yells The Guy Who Raps.

Ryan’s cackle is torn out of him, ragged with shock. How the _fuck_ did someone whose music taste consisted of 21st Century hard rock and alternative metal know a Panic! At The Disco song?

He has to turn off the water because he’s laughing so hard. He can’t even bring himself to feel embarrassed that Geoff overheard him singing upbeat pop rock; all he does when he fetches breakfast is grin.

“Morning, sunshine.”

Geoff’s childish scowl makes him even more satisfied with his work.

 

* * *

 

His costume is amazing. It’s not the most expensive material, but the costume department have still managed to create Detective Pollard a fucking _three-piece_ suit, which makes Ryan feel very official. It also doesn’t swallow him up, which is great. He’s not exactly intending to die of heatstroke on-stage. That would be… tedious.

Though the formalwear needs a little bit of modification, there’s a beautiful dress shirt with a wing-tipped collar, and when he ties the little black tie that’s at the bottom of the pile, he feels very esteemed indeed. Couple this with the shiny black dress shoes and, well, he certainly _looks_ the part. Although he doesn’t have a sword, which was the best part about Claudio’s costume in _Much Ado About Nothing,_ he still wants to quietly get Joel’s approval.

Unfortunately, his director is in the corner fretting.

And he doesn’t sound happy in the slightest.

He meanders over; Eva looks wonderful, in a dark pantsuit, and with some sort of 20th Century hairstyle involving a lot of pins. She does, however, wear a similar cringe to Ryan. The sound of strained, neurotic screeching pierces their eardrums.

“Dooley, don’t be fucking with me,” Joel’s saying irritably into his cell phone, “can you fill in or not...? Yeah, we did have him, but he’s come down with flu, like an _asshole_ , and Nina can’t do it all by herself--”

“What’s up?” Ryan mouths at Eva.

“Eddie,” she mimes back, rolling her eyes and sticking her tongue out. Ryan can easily believe this. Eddie’s never been the most reliable guy, and it drives everyone up the wall.

“--Thank you, _thank you_ ,” Joel’s saying now. He sounds relieved. “You’re the only person I could think of who might be free. I’ll send you the schedule.”

Ryan waits until he’s ended the call to try to approach him. “Everything okay, Joel?” he asks cautiously, and then wishes he hadn’t.

“No, everything’s not _okaaaay_ ,” he bursts out with, “two weeks til opening night and Eddie has the fucking _flu!_ I hate that guy, I _hate_ him. Fuckin’ asshole. Now I’ve had to call in Jeremy, who’s an even bigger asshole, except he’s the kind of asshole who sticks around to drive me up the wall--!”

“Eddie has the flu?” Ryan asks dubiously.

“Allegedly. Lexy won forty dollars, I’ve heard.”

Ryan winces.

“Yeah. I hope he coughs up a fucking lung,” Joel spits.

At first, Ryan feels like this might be overkill - Eddie clearly isn’t ill, given his track record, but Joel’s fury might be a little unwarranted.

By the end of the evening, he’s changed his mind. They run through the whole musical _twice_ , complete with songs, and Joel makes them start again every time they fuck up a line.

(Ryan gets super nervous and fucks up a lot of lines.)

Joel snaps at him, and makes him run through his brief solo three times over.

(Ryan gets even more nervous, and can’t hit the notes towards the end, no matter how hard he tries.)

Joel is pissed with him.

As he’s walking home at midnight, barely able to see his own feet dragging along the tarmac, he feels the shittiness that comes with any production. A show low. He thinks Gavin calls it ‘performance pap’, or something equally as nonsensical, when he’s trying to comfort Meg.

Yep.

This is performance pap.

No-one’s awake when he stumbles into the kitchen at just before one AM, so he grabs himself an iced tea to soothe his throat, and collapses on the couch. It’s hard to fault Joel when he’s under so much legitimate stress, so now he really _does_ hope Eddie coughs up a lung; on the other hand, Eddie didn’t make him sing ‘The Long Game’ until he was tired of hearing Ryan get it wrong, or restart Act Two Scene Two _maybe_ six times. Ryan had lost count.

Then he’d dropped the prop he’d been holding. Just to top it off. And it’d been a glass bottle.

To add insult to injury, he catches sight of his reflection in the screen of his cell phone, and realises he forgot to take off Pollard’s stage makeup. _Great_. Just fucking great. He can only imagine what Gus and Geoff’s reaction would’ve been if they’d been awake to see him in this state, all thick eyebrows and slightly orange skin.

Time for a shower.

He peels off the ratty clothes he wore to rehearsal, specifically so he could change out of them, and feels exhaustion in every muscle in his legs; it’d been a _lot_ of standing up tonight. When he finally twists on the spray, the sheet of water that falls on him amplifies the weariness tenfold, weighing down his bones.

He starts crying.

It’s a little bit because Joel was mad at him, and a little bit more because he’s worried he can’t get any of it right. Mostly, though, it’s because he’s tired. There’s eyebrow pencil running down his cheeks, he’s sure.

Ryan bunches his hands against the tile of the shower, and wheezes out some choked tears, and thanks whatever higher power that he gets to have a lie in tomorrow. His eyes are outlined with raw achiness, one which comes with a specific, sore sadness, and prickling catharsis, and his knees hurt - mostly from being upright for so long in front of everyone. It’s all too easy to relieve the pain, sinking down to the cool shower basin and crossing his legs.

The shower on the other side of the wall turns on, and something in Ryan’s chest _jumps_.

The Guy Who Raps…

Was he fully clothed? Was he in pyjamas? Did he just happen to take a shower seven hours early?

What the fuck was he _doing_ , joining Ryan’s misery party?

(He guesses it’s the only party they’re ever gonna share, in a distant portion of his brain.)

And it’s all wrenched from him at once. Great, racking sobs, stinging when he wipes his eyes, because there are tiny cuts on his fingers where he’d picked up all the remnants of the broken prop. He’s physically depleted, and emotionally pent up, and it takes seconds for everything to start pouring out, swirling down the drain with sweat and primer.

There’s a knocking sound against the wall. One long, two short, one long.

_Tap, tap-tap, tap._

Ryan wriggles his toes in the water. Deep breaths help to reign in his outburst. He pulls one hand over his face again, watches it come back in greasy flesh tones, and rubs his fingers on the plastic floor to rinse away the last of his costume.

And then, with his other hand, he returns the call.

_Tap, tap._

There’s a comfort, found only in the white noise of running water, that washes over him; Ryan sits, calmer and cleaner, and knows that whoever’s showering next door hasn’t left him yet.

He doesn’t hear the other shower shut off until he’s dry and dressed. He’s not sure if it would be weird to say _thank you,_ or not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Songs in this chapter:
> 
> Papa Roach - Forever  
> Panic! At The Disco - L.A. Devotee [bc honestly? an all-girls dance troupe would BOSS this]


	4. Chapter 4

It’s miscellaneous tasks day, where Joel’s going to be directing random scenes he thinks are in need of some work, and the art department tie up any loose ends. He arrives in the hall to see Joel scowling even harder than usual.

“They wanna take your measurements again to see if the costume needs adjusting,” Joel says when he approaches, entrenching frown lines deep into his forehead, “just… Get it done, Haywood.”

“Yeesh, who pissed in your Cheerios?” Ryan asks, his annoyance overriding his apprehension, and gets his answer when Joel glares daggers at the lighting rig.

On closer inspection…

Someone’s _up there_.

Though it’s hard to tell from below, the guy clinging to the scaffold looks like a short and stocky guy. He must have some serious core strength to have hauled himself up there with no ladder or anything, and as Ryan’s staring incredulously, he starts to descend. The way he finds handholds, swinging down expertly, brings nature documentaries with monkeys in them to mind.

“I got it, Nina!” the tech guy calls out. The lights flash red and yellow in response. Was—was that _green hair_ he’d dyed on top?

“I hate him,” Joel mutters, and folds his arms like a toddler.

“Hey, Joel!”

“Hi, Jeremy,” he grumbles, and Jeremy waves as he strides over.

“I’ve sorted the wiring in the lights, so the red spot should be operational now. I’m gonna work on the speakers next, if there’s nothing else you want me to do first?”

God, he’s _gorgeous_. Thick rows of facial hair frame his jaw and mouth, too groomed to be unruly but far enough from precise shaping to avoid being douchey. He’s a brunet, he’s got _dimples_ , and mischievous brown eyes--

“Jeremy, I called you in because I’m stuck and I can’t do everything and I can’t do _anything_ and I don’t know how light and sound works. Do whatever the fuck you want, because I _really_ don’t care as long as it gets done in the next few days.”

“Yeah, Joel, I got it. I’ll have it done tomorrow, buddy, don’t sweat it,” Jeremy grins.

“ _Don’t sweat it?!_ This fucking competition is gonna send me to an early grave--”

“Haphap hap hap haaaap,” Jeremy imitates nonsensically, looking far too dismissive and relaxed for someone who’s pushing all of Joel’s berserk buttons right now. “You direct, Nina and me’ll fix the rig, everything’s gonna be fine. Now go do whatever it is you do, and quit shopping-til-you-drop in the Anxiety Department.”

Joel actually stops talking, though he doesn’t look happy about it. With his mouth pressed into a thin line, he storms off to yell at Molly and Lexy in the scene they’re about to rehearse.

Ryan gapes.

“I’ve never seen _anyone_ do that!” he says, and forgets all his shyness in the face of this random stranger, this miracle worker who can wrangle Joel’s pessimism into something useful.

“Oh, what, _Joel?_ It’s easy enough,” Jeremy says flippantly. “Everybody takes the wrong approach, is all. Instead of winding him down, you gotta wind him up until he can’t go any further… He levels off after a little while.”

“Huh,” Ryan says.

Jeremy grins at him, and _oh god_ , the dimples. They’re too damn much. “The old man’s just gotta cram some more fibre in his diet. Are you playing Pollard?”

“You-- You know the script that well already?”

“I’m good with short-notice, what can I say.”

“Well,” says Ryan, “uh, yeah. Yeah, I am.”

“Well, I guess I’ll get to know you better in a couple days. We’re down for practicing all your solo scenes in technical. Good luck out there, buddy,” he winks.

And then, leaving him with a soul-destroying goodbye, adds:

“…There’s something cool about a guy who sings.”

Ryan is left open-mouthed and flushed as Jeremy returns to the back of the hall. After watching the shorter man vault the desk that the equipment’s balanced on, he turns, directionless, and spots Max.

Max is fucking _losing_ it.

Ryan wants to give him a huge middle finger, but his hands are kinda shaky, and also Joel screeches his name at that exact moment.

_“Get your ass over for your costume adjustments!”_

He’s not gonna argue. He probably doesn’t have the brainpower right now, anyway.

 

* * *

 

“Oh, hey, Ryan,” says Gavin. He’s playing video games with Geoff in the kitchenette, all sprawled over the sofa, but he still has enough spare brainpower to register that Ryan’s come back from class.

“Hey, Gav.”

“I’ve got your ticket for Meg’s recital wotsit,” he says, still staring at Halo, “she’s really damn excited for it. Thanks for coming, dude.”

“Wouldn’t miss it,” Ryan says sincerely, and pours himself a bowl of cereal. He’s an adult now, which means _he_ gets to decide what that means, and if it means eating tasteless bran at four in the afternoon then he’ll take it.

“Day after your last performance, yeah?”

Oh, that’s right. “You’re all invited to the after-party,” Ryan tells the two of them, “let the others know. I don’t wanna go if it’s not with you guys.”

“Gay,” snorts Geoff. (Ryan nods in agreement, his mouth full of cereal, but neither of them notice.) “You fucking killed me, you asshole--”

“That’s the _game,_ Geoffrey.”

“Shut up.”

They’re still arguing when Ryan leaves them to take a shower. It’d be great if he could come out of the show with the least spots possible, and that kinda meant keeping his hair and face clean. And besides… It’s a great opportunity to practice his solo in peace.

He doesn’t end up practicing it.

When he opens the door to his tiny wet room, Ryan realises that next door’s shower is already running, and starts to look forward to today’s rendition of whatever rap he doesn’t know. Except The Guy Who Raps isn’t making music.

Well.

He kind of is. Maybe Ryan would describe it like that, if he’d been the sort of guy who was badly poetic, but he’s not, and the situation is basically just next door jerking off.

He feels his face heat up.

This is _obviously_ private.

He’s already undressed, though.

…Goddamnit, this is _his_ shower, in _his_ room, and he can use it _whenever he likes_ , and he’s also on a tight schedule because rehearsals start in an hour.

(Oh, man, that’s a nice noise, though.)

Quit it, Haywood.

(...It’s a _really_ nice noise. More of a breathy moan than just a noise.)

Ryan thinks _‘fuck it’_ to himself, and turns on his shower. In the startled silence that follows, there’s a decision to make – and Ryan makes it, because it’s been a _cereal-at-four-PM_ , _hard-day-at-classes_ , _rehearsals-aren’t-gonna-be-this-much-fun-later_ kind of afternoon.

He runs both hands down the V of his hips, and gives himself a couple of languid, lazy strokes, and moans _possibly_ a little louder than he needs to.

The tile between them makes him braver than he would be usually. He only has to look at the singing and the crying and the solo practice to understand that. This is new territory though – the exciting, scary kind of new territory that only helps how hard he’s getting, and really, that’s something he should probably let sink in later. Ryan kind of wants to enjoy it, in the present.

That is… If he hasn’t messed everything up, by being weird.

It’s relieving, and thrilling, when The Guy Who Raps lets another noise escape. It’s almost inaudible through the wall and the water, but it’s higher pitched than the first. Maybe with surprise. Maybe with something else.

Running fingers over the skin around his happy trail, Ryan can’t even bring himself to be embarrassed that it’s not gonna take him long at all. He’s not gotten off in a little while, and to be honest, he should probably be doing it more often to dispel all his excess stress. With the knowledge that Geoff and Gavin are too busy playing Halo to hear him, he lets a groan reverberate off the shower walls; when he steadies a hand flat on the wall they share, he can feel the same vibrations as The Guy Who Raps hums.

It’s all deep and strangled, and it runs right through him.

Fuck, _fuck_. That’s sending him over the edge. He doesn’t know who he’s imagining, but he knows they’re fucking _hot_ , and real nice-sounding, and oh God in heaven, he’s already falling through an orgasm. Ryan whines, higher than his usual tone. He wants to bite out a name as he cums, but he doesn’t know one.

Where his orgasm is accompanied by elongated _ahhh_ s and extended breaths, next door’s isn’t – he seems to have heard Ryan stroking himself to completion and run with it, all short, punctuated vowels, and choked out consonants, and never a single full word. It’s super fucking attractive, _fuck_ , Ryan’s basking in his afterglow under the warm water and watching his cum swirl down the drain, but he still feels like he’s being intimate instead of just getting himself off.

After they both come down to something quieter, the spray shuts off next door very rapidly. Figures. Ryan’s got places to be, too.

The next morning, though, at eight AM, The Guy Who Raps doesn’t join him. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s not there – Saturdays and Sundays are often lie-in days for the both of them – but it’s the first time they’ve had an interaction which coincides with his absence.

Ryan slips a note through the door, for only the second time ever.

 

 _To the guy who raps in the shower,_  
_Let’s duet again sometime_ _  
-The guy who sings_

 

And the next morning, when Ryan’s practicing his solo for the umpteenth time, he hears the door click shut and the shower start.

He grins, and keeps singing. It’s pretty cool to know he hasn’t screwed it all up.


	5. Chapter 5

“We’re not doing the songs today,” Joel says, when he arrives early for his solo-scenes rehearsal. “I’m doubling up you and the Valentina scenes so Nina and Jeremy can sort out the lighting.”

Ryan nods. The little knot of fear jammed between his ribs untangles itself - no singing was fine with him.

It takes him less than fifteen minutes to pull on his costume and slap some standard stage makeup onto his skin, because he’s a _professional_ , goddamnit (and it would have been ten minutes, but he’s not very good at pencilling in his eyebrows yet). When he jogs on from back stage right, Joel waves him down into the audience instead.

“Jeremy wants to see you. I told him he’s got five minutes.”

“Okay?” says Ryan, puzzled, and wanders to the back of the hall.

At the sound desk, Nina grins at him silently from under a huge pair of headphones, and kicks at something under the table.

“ _Ow_ \-- Nina, what the f— _Ohh_. Hey, Ryan!”

Ryan watches bemusedly as Jeremy’s bright green locks emerge from under the sound desk. There’s a thick wire wrapped around his shoulders. “You wanted to see me?” he smirks, and appreciates that he manages not to fumble the words.

“Yeah, I gotta mic you up and make some lighting decisions,” Jeremy says, untangling himself, “it’ll take two seconds. Nina’s got the Valentinas, and I got Pollard, so I gotta try to take this seriously…”

He clambers around Nina (who seems to be taking them much more sensible approach of making notes on Molly and Lexy, rather than fixing impromptu appointments), and walks circles around him, examining the costume. Ryan’s suddenly hyper-aware of his posture.

“Let me get a real look atcha,” Jeremy says, and makes good on his word. Abruptly, he stops opposite Ryan, and stands on tiptoes to scrutinise his face a little better.

Ryan forgets to breathe.

“Okay... This the makeup you'll have during the performances? Costume too?”

“Yup,” he mumbles, nodding curtly.

“Okay,” Jeremy repeats. God, this is torture. “Green coat, blue eyes… I'm thinking a peach for the green, maybe soft orange filter overall for... Y'know. Treating the front row to those pools.”

Ryan blinks self-consciously, feeling his face warm:

“Yeah, peach just like that,” Jeremy winks.

Ryan’s whole thought process shuts down temporarily, as though someone’s held down the power button to his brain and smothered everything. He stands, gaping, trying to get it to restart.

Jeremy grins, and says nothing. He presses a microphone and its clip-on battery into Ryan’s hands, and retreats behind the sound and light desk once more. Whether he’s aware of the reaction he’s provoked in the show’s lead is unclear.

“Ryan? You ready?” calls Joel, and Ryan jumps.

“Yeah!” he calls, too quickly. It’s a good job Max is backstage right now.

He bounds up the stairs, front stage left, and pulls the wire of the microphone up through his costume’s waistcoat. At least he’s being eased into it. Lexy and Molly are backstage - Eva’s nowhere to be seen, thank god, because he can’t deal with a solo and a kiss at the moment, not when he’s so _nervous_ \- and the only people who can see him are Joel, Matt, and the tech crew.

 _You’re just in the shower_ , he thinks to himself. _You got this. It’s just like how you practice every morning._

Ryan closes his eyes when the piano intro comes in. When he opens them again, there’s a peach-coloured spot shining down on him.

He feels better.

Taking a deep breath, he stares at a fixed point at the back of the hall, and does his best to _start low, increase volume with time_ , or whatever bullshit Joel had fed him last week. Singing is fucking hard on stage, he’s remembering now. It’s not just lyrics and melody. With every line, there’s minutiae and intricacies to recall; how he has to spread his arms wide at the second verse, for example, or pace around the front of the stage at the bridge.

 _The folly of allure of wealth,_ _  
_ _The grip of greed on strength and health…_

Yeah, it’s working out well.

It helps that Eddie isn’t around to fuck around with the spotlights; last time he’d managed to turn the performance into a fucking rave. And the volume of the backing track this time is _perfect_.

Damn. The replacement tech guy is _super_ good.

Joel actually applauds when the music fades out. “You got it, Ryan,” he says, snorting in spite of himself, “you finally got it down. Good job.”

“Fuck,” Ryan says, instead of ‘thanks’.

“Go give your mic back, dude. Molly and Lexy are on next, and then we’ll do the scene in Act Two with Pollard _and_ the Valentinas.”

Ryan scrambles off stage to return his microphone, untangling himself from it as he goes; at the end of the hall, Molly and Lexy are in full costume, with Nina examining them.

Jeremy seems very focused on his lighting equipment.

“Hey, Jeremy,” he says, smiling, “that was an amazing job, thank you so much--”

“It was?” Jeremy asks. His head snaps up so fast that he looks like he might have gotten whiplash from it.

“Yeah!” says Ryan enthusiastically. He’s practically gushing, but he’s so _excited_. “That’s the first time I’ve ever done that well! Eddie has a tendency to distract me with the lights, and you didn’t do that whatsoever. I can’t believe how in tune you are to all this. You’re like Leonard Bernstein.”

“Like who, sorry?”

“Leonard Bernstein,” he explains, because it’s much easier to talk to a stranger about things you know and love. “He filled in at short notice for his first big conducting gig, and he was so brilliant he was instantly famous. That’s how his career jumpstarted.”

“Well,” says Jeremy, and flashes that wonderful, knee-liquefying smile, “I don’t know about instantly famous, but I’ll take that. Thanks, pal.”

Ryan feels himself flush, and grins, and somewhat awkwardly retreats backstage to wait for his call.

(Jeremy’s voice sounds kinda familiar.)

 

* * *

 

“So what’s the after party gonna be like?”

Meg leans over, her latte cradled in her palms. They’re in her favourite coffee shop after class again, except this time, they managed to snag one of the well-loved couches in the corner.

“It’s usually… loud,” he says carefully. “Lots of alcohol. Lots of pairing off. Plus, there tends to be actors in period dress dotted around, which is always pretty funny.”

“So… Shenanigans?” Meg grins.

He narrows his eyes. “Did you pick that up from Lindsay’s angry boyfriend?”

“His name’s _Michael_ , and he’s from New Jersey. Gosh, Ry.”

“Hey, in my defence, he hangs out with Gavin more than Geoff or Gus. I never see him.”

“You will at the after party,” she smirks, “we’re all coming to closing night. Me and Gavin. Geoff, Gus, and Jack. Lindsay and Michael are gonna be there, Mica and Kdin-- _oh!_ Mariel and Steffie from dance want to come and see you too--”

“That’s a lot of people,” Ryan mumbles.

“Hey,” says Meg, a sweet smile framed by her purple hair, “you’ll be _fine_. Stop worrying, you asshole, you’re more confident these days than I’ve ever seen you. Remember that presentation for programming the other month?”

“What about it?”

“Remember how you aced this one, and flunked last year’s?”

He hadn’t thought about it like _that_.

“Huh... I guess you’re right.”

“You’re damn right, I’m right,” she says, leaning back into the couch and taking a long sip of her coffee. “Ryan Haywood _seriously_ fortified this semester.”

“Are you so proud of me?” he jokes.

“Right again,” Meg laughs.

She’s such a good friend.


	6. Chapter 6

The final dress rehearsal is a flurry of muscle memory and those few botched lines which never seem to go right. The week leading up to it has been intense, to say the least - Ryan’s running through his solo during his morning shower, Act One after class, and Act Two after his dinner, and that’s _on top_ of all his assignments and quizzes. Yikes.

It has meant, however, that he’s had some quality time with Jeremy between scenes. What with all the technical rehearsals, and all.

“How’re you feeling about tomorrow, buddy?”

“Okay,” Ryan says honestly, and he means it. With such a cohesive team, it’s hard to feel like everything’s going to be a disaster. “The only guy who could possibly fuck it all up is _me_. I know I can rely on everyone else.”

“Hey, that’s just not true,” says Jeremy. “You haven’t forgotten a single line in any of your rehearsals, that’s gotta count for something.”

“I haven’t forgotten them, but it’s not like I can say them in English all the time,” he points out.

“They’re all in there, though. In your brain.”

“I guess I can work on that,” he concedes, and they briefly pause. From behind the light and sound desk, they have a wonderful view of Marcus and Max changing the backdrops; in thirty seconds, it goes from a ruby-red train carriage to a vibrant green countryside. Jeremy raises the lights, and Lexy comes on to recite their monologue.

“You never flub the song, if that’s any consolation,” he says.

“I definitely know that one,” Ryan agrees. “I practice it every fucking day. Mostly I’m just worried that I’ll hit a shitty note, and my friends’ll _never_ let that go. I’m not really a singer.”

“I like your voice,” Jeremy says.

“I like yours, too,” Ryan replies, thinking about how familiar it sounds, how hearing it makes him feel like he just woke up--

And he breathes out a series of vowels when he registers exactly what he’s said.

Simultaneously, Jeremy turns _scarlet_.

Oh, boy.

“Um,” says Ryan, forgetting that they were actually having a nice moment, like they were friends. “I mean--”

“You’re on soon,” Jeremy murmurs. He’s focused, hard, on the lighting equipment, but there’s a smile tugging at the corners of his lips.

Ryan stands up. His chair makes a screeching noise.

Nina glances over and stifles a giggle.

“Right,” he says, blinking owlishly, and heads towards stage left.

He tries not to ruminate on how his palms are sweatier than they’ve ever been, in any of his runthroughs of Act Two, and concentrates on making sure Joel doesn’t aggravate any possibility of male pattern baldness.

 

* * *

 

Opening night is easy.

They only have four nights (plus one afternoon, too), and opening night is usually the hardest one. But no-one throws up. No-one spectacularly misses any kind of cue. Matt Hullum only has to feed lines three times, and he looks very pleased about it. It’s a great sign for the coming nights.

Ryan briefly feels his hands shaking when his solo comes up. At the back of the hall, just left of the spot he stares at, he can make out the silhouette of the technical rig - and Jeremy sticks an arm out to flash him an energetic thumbs up.

Knowing that Jeremy’s there to supervise his character’s scenes makes him feel more at ease. It’s the little things he does like hand gestures and smiles, and spotlights, and signals with the machines at hand to let him know it’s going to be alright.

Jeremy Dooley seems to calm down everyone with an easy grin and some lighthearted teasing. He’s a cheerful, tranquil foil to Joel’s neuroticisms. He flirts with Ryan unashamedly, and suddenly soaks up Ryan’s shyness when it’s turned back on him, and oh _shit,_ Ryan might have a little bit of a crush going on.

The realisation alarms him, but it doesn’t scare him. He rattles off the solo like it’s second nature, and doesn’t make a single mistake on any of the nights. He doesn’t drop the prop bottle in Act Two Scene Two. And he takes a bow at the end with everyone else on the third night, having stumbled over precisely _zero_ lines.

Oh, opening night is easy. And the ones after that are even better. No, it’s closing night that strikes the fear of god into him, because everyone he knows is gonna be in the audience, ready to laugh.

Jesus. He pokes his head around the curtain discreetly, and they’re all in _the front fucking two rows_.

“They’ve all come to see me,” he says, dazed, when Jeremy flutters around backstage to hand out microphones.

Jeremy stops, the last mic in his hands labelled _Pollard_. “Is that bad?”

“...I feel a bit sick.”

“Don’t throw up on the mic, they’re expensive,” Jeremy jokes. “Here, lemme help ya.”

Ryan freezes when he unbuttons the waistcoat, clipping the filtered end to his wingtip collar and buttoning it back up over the wire.

Jeremy frowns with concentration: “you’ll be great. They’re your friends, right?”

“Right.”

“They’re gonna love it. I don’t know which people you’re talking about, but it looks like a good crowd to me, and a good crowd give a fuckin’ good cheer at the encore. Your song’s great, and your performance is great, so just _relax_ , Ryan. Okay?”

Ryan anxiously throws a hand through his hair and musses it up, just as Jeremy clips the battery pack to the belt loops above his ass.

“Right,” he whispers.

“Break a leg,” Jeremy says, clapping him on the arm.

Ryan wishes that Jeremy doesn’t have to leave him to do technical stuff.

He’s full on shivering as he waits backstage, despite the three-piece suit, but it turns out there really isn’t anything to be afraid of; when Inspector Pollard strides on stage, professionally surveying his surroundings, it’s the first night he gets a _cheer_ from just an entrance. Geoff, Jack, and Gavin are whooping gleefully; Meg and Lindsay yell in higher pitches compared to Gus and Michael. Ryan briefly thinks he can hear Burnie, too.

He glances uncertainly towards the back of the hall, where Joel likes to lurk in the shadows, and sees him clapping as well. There’s a wry smile etched into his features.

“Creeps and grifters,” he says, projecting his voice over the last of Gavin’s _woooo!_ noises. “Not the sorts one usually encounters on the Express...”

And from there, it’s plain sailing.

Ryan gets to his solo and wobbles a little, he’ll admit - but one look down, into the crowd that came to support _him?_ Well, Meg’s radiant beaming, and Geoff’s lounging, instantly distract him from the monumental task at hand. He’s never performed the song to them before tonight. They won’t know that he’s not supposed to be fighting off a smile.

He doesn’t drop the bottle, and now he’ll never have to touch the fucking prop ever again. Eva and he kiss, properly, in front of two hundred people, and hell if either of their gay asses ever have to do that again, too. The cast have to bow three times because of all the clapping, and among their individual spotlights, Ryan’s cheer is one of the loudest.

They hand out booze to Marcus and Max, and Joel and Matt. Joel calls the author of the musical up, and gives her a bottle of champagne; then he directs the audience’s attention to the back of the hall, towards Jeremy and Nina. Evidently no-one told them they’d be being thanked, because Nina cackles and Jeremy takes a mock bow.

Ryan raises a hand to wave to him.

This is what the opposite of ‘performance pap’ feels like.

“After party?” Lexy says to him backstage, pulling off old-fashioned shoes and grabbing at their modern pumps.

“Why not?” he smiles. The euphoria is dizzying.

The suit is hung up neatly for the costume department, because plain period dress is one thing. Suits are a whole different kettle of fish, and it’s a kettle that’s labelled ‘ _please don’t party out these clothes’_. Being murdered by a furious tailor isn’t on his to-do list, so he pulls on his t-shirt and jeans and heads out to Jack’s car, where he, Geoff, Jack, and Gus are gonna head out to the party.

Oh, baby Jesus and all the angels, there’s a _pool_.

“Who _owns_ this place?!”

“Friend of Matt’s, I think,” Jack says, equally stunned. “Well… Guess we’re in for a night and a half. Has anyone seen Michael and Gavin?”

“We’re over here,” says Meg, from somewhere behind Ryan’s right shoulder. She presses a drink into his hand, and before he can protest, she says, “you did _so_ well and I’m so, so proud of you, I love you, you’re wonderful--”

“She never says that about me,” Gavin grumbles.

“You fucking _liar_ , I say stuff like that all the _time_.”

Everyone else got there way before Ryan’s group did. He feels that Meg may have already had a bit to drink.

They congregate outside, by the pool. People keep pressing drinks into his hands and congratulating him on a job well done, which is a nice sentiment, but also he feels obligated to finish the alcohol just so it’s gone as quickly as possible. He feels like he’s blinking too much by the time Matt and Joel come over.

“Great work, man, that was flawless.”

“Just trying to keep Joel sane,” he says to Matt.

“Yeah, well, it worked,” Matt says, jabbing a finger towards the director, “now instead of being a drunken, miserable mess, he’s only a drunken mess. I’d say that’s a fuckin’ achievement.”

“Have fun with that.”

“Oh, I will. I kinda wanna push him in the pool... It’d be really funny, but I think he’d probably just die.”

Gus nods sagely. “Please don’t let Joel near the water.”

Joel hears his name and perks up - Ryan spots the bottle in his hand, and realises he’s finished almost all of it since it was presented to him on stage an hour ago. “Ryan!” he says cheerfully. Fuck if _that_ isn’t unnerving. “You’re my best guy! _Thank_ you--”

“Alright,” Ryan wheezes, from within a bone crushing hug. “No problem, Joel, I… Uh… Joel? Buddy?”

Geoff pries him away from the embrace. “I’ll push him in the pool, I don’t mind,” he offers.

“Know what?” Ryan tells him. “I’m just gonna… Go get some water from the kitchen. You do you, man.”

“Don’t say _that_ , he really will go-- _no_ , Geoff--!” Matt shouts, but Ryan’s already weaving his way through the crowds of people. Eva and Molly are still in costume, and Molly looks like she’s falling asleep on her costar's lap; he also passes by Gavin and Meg making out against a wall, except Meg’s holding Lindsay’s hand as _she_ chats with Michael?

(It’s probably best left unquestioned. Each to their own, yadda yadda, they’re obviously having a good time and it’s none of Ryan’s business. Meg will tell him about it eventually, he’s sure.)

The kitchen’s tiny, and mostly devoid of people. It looks like the party goers have already stormed through here, and moved on like locusts; every surface is piled high with beer cans and bottles.

The only person in there is Jeremy.

“Hey,” Ryan says, and manages to keep his tone level.

“Oh, shit, Ryan! Hi,” Jeremy says, looking up from where he’s stealing Coca-Cola and pouring it into a plastic cup. “You did amazingly.”

“So did you,” he replies.

Jeremy shrugs. “How come you’re not in the main room? They’ve got all kinds of eighties stuff playing right now.”

“We were outside,” explains Ryan, gesturing with his beer bottle, “but I came in to get water. People keep handing me drinks, and I keep trying to put them down, but I’ve had to drink some to get rid of them? And then I found you. And here I am.”

“So you are,” Jeremy says. He puts the cap back on the plastic bottle, and downs his drink in a few short seconds.

“Everything okay?”

“You sound tipsy,” Jeremy grins, “I thought maybe I could catch up.”

“I’m not that bad,” Ryan mumbles.

“You’re awesome,” he retorts, and grabs a bottle of whiskey from the counter. Ryan assumes this one actually belongs to him this time. “It’s been great working with you, pal. I’ve enjoyed it a _lot_.”

“Shut up,” Ryan says, and takes a swig of his beer, just so he has something to do that isn’t staring at Jeremy’s beard. “You’re the best tech crew member I’ve ever worked with, for sure.”

Jeremy’s either blushing, or is as comfortably tipsy as Ryan feels.

There’s an enormous, jubilant cheer from the main room; when it dies down, Ryan forces himself to pick out the riff that’s playing through the wall. He waits until [the first verse](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCyxO57Hn6k) floats in, over the guitar and the synths, before he hazards a guess:

“Together In Electric Dreams...?” he murmurs.

“This sounds like something you’d sing in the shower,” Jeremy says offhandedly, and then claps a hand to his mouth.

Ryan drops the bottle.

It doesn’t shatter. It bounces on the linoleum, and neatly cracks into four or five pieces. Ryan feels stupid; his first reaction is relief, because now he doesn’t have to drink it anymore.

“Oh, god,” mumbles Jeremy.

“I’m not mad,” Ryan says immediately.

“...You’re not?”

“I,” Ryan starts, and stumbles, and wishes he had a script. “I, uh. When? _Why?_ How come you didn’t you tell me...?”

Jeremy shifts uncomfortably. Glass crunches under the soles of his shoes. “I only figured it out at the rehearsal when I heard you sing. After all the times you sang it… I don’t know. It stuck with me. And then you were there, singing it, _in front of me_.”

“I _knew_ your voice sounded familiar!”

That earns him a grin: “I wasn’t sure you’d worked it out or not. I thought you were just flirting back at me, I’ll be honest.”

‘Flirting back’ implies reciprocation, and Ryan bites his lip nervously. “I mean... I kinda was-- I was _trying_ to. I’m, uh, not very good. At this,” he says vaguely, waving his hands and gesturing to all of the both of them, “at _anything_ , really. Sorry.”

“Don’t apologise,” Jeremy murmurs. “You’re good at singing in the shower.”

Ryan feels the corners of his lips twitch. At least Jeremy enjoys his concerts.

“You’re great at rapping.”

“I bet some of them you even recognised,” Jeremy jokes.

“There’s one I liked the best,” Ryan says, “but you never sang it again after the first couple times. Something about bitter words?”

Jeremy grimaces with admittance: “that was... original.”

“Really? Oh, wow,” says Ryan, sounding surprised at first, and slowly drifting into the realm of inelegance. “You’ll have to give me a, uh... a rendition, in person sometime?”

“A rendition?” Jeremy laughs. “You don't give a _rendition_ of a rap. You give a _performance!_ And I'd perform in person for you _anytime_ , Haywood, don’t worry about that.”

Ryan can feel the heat begin to radiate from his face, and looks for something to distract himself with, _pronto._ He bends down to pick up the glass pieces, because broken glass and drunk people is never a good combination in his experience.

Jeremy crouches down on the balls of his feet to collect the fragments closer to his shoes.

“...Thanks.”

“Kinda my fault anyway,” Jeremy grins, and stretches over him to dump it all in the trash. When Ryan rises again, at full height and with more alcohol than he’s used to in his system, he registers that they’re suddenly a lot less far apart than they were before.

“Can I help you?”

“Oh, I wasn’t finished talking.”

Ryan grins.

Stepping so close into his personal space that they’re looking up and down to face each other, rather than staring straight across the kitchen, Jeremy continues: “You’re good at singing. You’ve got weird taste in music… But I _like_ it. And I just-- I think you’re _interesting_ , Ryan. That’s all there is to it.”

“What?” he breathes, because he’d expected something about his performance, and received something about him as a _person_.

But Jeremy doesn’t stop.

“And, y’know,” he shrugs, “I didn’t know for _sure_ it was you, not definitely. Plus, I’m… really boring? I don’t know, Ry, I didn’t want to burst your bubble if you were expecting someone better than me. Someone more exciting or good-looking or, _argh_ , it doesn’t matter--”

“--No, it does!” Ryan protests, suddenly filled with some kind of desperate bravery. “It does matter, it matters to _me_. I really like you, Jeremy. You’re already all those things.”

Jeremy doesn’t respond, but Ryan’s so close to him that he can hear startled air being drawn through teeth.

“I think my brain was expecting you all along,” he explains. “I couldn’t really imagine what you looked like on the other side, not really, and I don’t think I’m creative enough to think up someone as cool as you.”

“Shut up,” Jeremy grins, and breaks eye contact.

“Alright,” says Ryan.

He leans into the shorter man, until their chests are sharing the same warmth, and presses their lips together. Jeremy tastes like whiskey and original Coke, which means he’s kissing back, which _also_ means Ryan hasn’t made some terrible-awful-shitty rash decision.

That’s good.

(He still tries to commit the scratch of Jeremy’s beard to memory, just in case.)

Distantly, he registers another celebratory cheer; it sounds like [a track](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nonGWDxcJNA) by The The just came on after The Human League. It’s quickly forgotten when Jeremy places a hand on his cheekbone. For all his flirtatious bravado, Jeremy lets his partner set the pace - he doesn’t introduce any new elements to their kissing until Ryan does, which is really fucking considerate and sweet.

He only slides his hands into the back of Ryan’s hair when Ryan holds his hips, over the line of his jeans but under the line of his waist. Ryan’s lost in the moment. It’s _wonderful_. He doesn’t want it to end, just in case he and Jeremy are actually drunk instead of simply tipsy.

And then Joel bursts in.

“You know what?” Jeremy says matter-of-factly, as Joel visibly considers giving out hugs instead of lunging for the kitchen sink. “I think maybe we could take this somewhere else.”

“My room isn’t far from here,” says Ryan. He feels glassy-eyed.

“Got a roommate?”

“Moved out.”

“Wicked,” Jeremy decides, and drags him out of the house, away from the party. The walk home is gonna sober them up so good.

 

 **Ryan Haywood: Thanks for the ride over. Heading back now so don’t worry about me** ****  
**Jack Pattillo: Did I just see you leaving with someone??** **  
** **Ryan Haywood: Tell NO-ONE.**

 

“Still haven’t met your buddies from the audience,” Jeremy grins. He’s texting as well, looking up occasionally to check he’s not about to fall flat on his face on the sidewalk.

Ryan sighs as he receives more messages.

 

**Jack Pattillo: Too late**

**Meg Turney: MAKE SURE YOU TELL ME EVERYTHING ♥**

 

“Yeah,” he acknowledges, “that’s probably for the best. Maybe later.”

Jeremy laughs, and lord in heaven, it sounds wonderful amidst the midnight air. “I’m pretty sure a lot of _my_ buddies live around these dorms. ‘Later’ could be _now_.”

“I don’t think either of us wanna see your friends at this particular moment in time,” Ryan says, and swipes his key fob to let himself into his side of the dorm.

“True.”

There’s a slap to his ass, and a particularly mischievous giggle, as Jeremy overtakes him on the stairs.

“C’mon. You’re supposed to be showing me the way.”

“I can think of a hundred responses to that, but I wouldn’t wanna put you off,” Ryan snorts.

“Put me off?” says Jeremy incredulously. Ryan crowds him into the hallway of his dorm, leading him towards the room he doesn’t share. “Man, there’s more than a hundred times I wished you’d be showing me something else, if that’s what you meant. Your costume _killed_ me, every damn time.”

Ryan fumbles for the keys to his room.

“It’s a real shame you’re not wearing that suit now, y’know. You look fucking good in it.”

“Hey, maybe I changed _specifically_ ‘cos I knew you’d ruin it. You don’t know.”

“I bet you look awesome without anything on for me to ruin,” Jeremy retorts, smirking, and Ryan yanks the keys from the lock with perhaps a little too much force. It’s not without good reason, though - it’s actually very, _very_ important that he pulls Jeremy into his bedroom by both arms, so that they can kiss the _fuck_ out of each other without delay.

The door swings shut; they’re making out in the dark, and it’s fucking _exhilarating_.

“I’m so into you,” Jeremy says quietly, against his lips.

Ryan makes a high pitched noise at the back of his throat. He slips his hands into Jeremy’s back pockets and draws him in, draws the man _up_ against his left leg. Jeremy moans at the same time Ryan feels the hard outline of his dick against him.

They haven’t even switched the lights on. Ryan extends an arm to flip the lamp on his nightstand on, and feels Jeremy’s eyes follow his every movement.

“Take your fuckin’ shirt off, man,” Jeremy says. “Seriously. It’s a crime to be hiding yourself.”

“Same to you,” he retorts feebly, and when they finally let go of each other, it’s seconds before they’re both topless. He must be looking at Jeremy with the same expression that’s being broadcast his way, because fuck if they both don’t gravitate towards each other once again. It’s doing things to him.

Time for bed.

Like…

Right now.

“...I’m gonna go down on you, if that’s okay.”

“No thanks,” says Jeremy, laughing, and lets Ryan playfully push him onto the bed.

“You mind wearing a condom?”

“Not at all. I’m guessin’ they’re in the nightstand.”

“Yeah, there’s cherry lube in there, too.” Ryan gestures lazily towards the drawer, falling to his knees to run his hands up Jeremy’s denim-clad legs, and tries his best not to be socially graceless. “It’s not that I don’t trust you, but...”

“Yeah, man, I know. It’s cool,” Jeremy beams, reappearing from where he’d been stretched out to snag the protection. Instead of just passing it over, he places his own hands in Ryan’s, to pull him up and briefly connect their lips again.

Ryan can feel him smile, and accidentally kisses his teeth.

“What?”

“Nothin’. You’re just...”

“What?!” Ryan presses, leaning his head against Jeremy’s abs and laughing. “What am I ‘just’?”

“You’re so _shy_ ,” Jeremy starts, “but--”

Ryan pops the button on his jeans, and pulls them down with minimal assistance.

“ _Ry_ an...”

“Keep going. I wanna hear what I’m ‘just’.”

“You’re so shy, but you’re not actually shy at all? I don’t understand you yet,” Jeremy rushes out, and stops to inhale sharply when Ryan leaves tiny kisses on the inside of his legs.

“Yeah?”

“Fuck, yeah,” he breathes. It’s possible he’s talking about something entirely different now.

“I’m not actually shy,” Ryan explains. There’s cool thighs on either side of his face. “I’m just an idiot most of the time.”

“ _Please_ be an idiot with me,” is the desperate reply.

Ryan leans forwards the tiniest amount, and mouths at the outline of Jeremy’s dick through the fabric of his underwear. Bucking hips, and the sudden spread of a wet spot, prompt him to finally de-boxer his shower partner.

(And on that note, time to _not_ consider shower sex. That’s probably thinking too far ahead.)

“You look so hot like that,” he says honestly, as he rolls the condom on and watches Jeremy’s eyelashes flutter.

“No, I don’t--”

“You do!” Ryan protests. “I want you to watch me.”

“Fuck,” Jeremy whines, as Ryan presses the little dispenser nozzle to warm the lube up in his right palm. “Yeah, I think that’s doable, why the hell not.”

He makes the most _beautiful_ noise when Ryan slips a hand down the length of his cock - his palm forms a tight, slick ring that coats the condom in lube, with a cherry scent that hits Ryan’s nose with all the subtlety of a freight train. The moan repeats when he wraps his lips around the tip, but louder this time, and he wants to make it happen again, he wants to reduce Jeremy to a squirming mess of impatience and coiled up tension, and he wants to be the one to unravel him.

Ryan _wants_. Plainly, and simply.

And if it means he physically relaxes Jeremy, at least as much as Jeremy mentally relaxes his peers, then all the better. It’s quite rewarding, this business of giving back.

“Fuck, _fuck_ ,” babbles Jeremy, “Ryan, _shit_ , that feels _so_ good.”

The other man looks down, and they make eye contact. It’s one thing for Ryan to look up through his eyelashes - to look up through his now-flyaway fringe, his mouth full of someone else’s dick - but it’s an entirely different thing to feel that person react to it. Jeremy twitches on his tongue, and Ryan’s hands detect a muscle jumping in the tech guy’s lower back.

He minds his teeth, because of the latex.

“Ryan,” Jeremy says, “I’m not gonna last, not much longer if you do shit like that,” and it only makes Ryan want to do shit like that more.

He lets Jeremy hit the back of his throat, and tries to swallow. He knows he’s not the most experienced at blowjobs, but come on - avoid biting, pay attention to the surrounding areas of skin, and swallow if you go for gold. They’re the obvious three rules. Or something along those lines.

It works, apparently, because when Ryan stills, enveloping as much of the shaft in warm wetness as he can, Jeremy cums with a strangled shout. He gets harder just watching the other man fisting his hands into the bedsheets.

Jeremy eventually pulls him off.

“Too sensitive,” he says, laughing breathlessly, “ _fuck_ , that was so good, Ry--”

He doesn’t get to finish. Ryan pushes him flat onto the bed and lies next to him, so that they can kiss lazily.

“--You taste of cherry.”

He breaks away and wipes his chin on his knuckles. “Sorry.”

“No, no… It’s cute. You got a trash can?”

It’s all the way over on the other side of the wall, the side that he doesn’t share with Jeremy’s dorm. It’s getting more obvious by the second that neither of them want to get up from the bed to trek _anywhere._

“I’ve got a floor,” Ryan shrugs, and Jeremy barks with laughter.

“Fair e-fuckin’- _nough_ , Haywood. It’s not my room.”

He ties off the condom and tosses it in the general direction of the trash can. Ryan kisses his cheer away from his mouth when the shot turns out to be perfect.

“Hey. Ryan.”

“Mmm-hmmm?”

“How’re you doin’?”

“My pants are getting… uncomfortable,” he decides.

“You wanna take them off?”

“Fuck yes, I do.”

Ryan manages to shimmy out of his pants, kicking them away from the covers and onto the floor. As soon as they’re gone, Jeremy looks pointedly down at his underwear, too.

“...Do I have to do all the work around here?”

“Shuck ‘em, Haywood. You don’t wanna miss _this_ cue.”

“Fuck off,” Ryan mumbles, and kicks off his underwear, too. It’s harder than denim, to get fabric that hugs skin off your hips when you’re lying down, but he manages, and the smell of cherry hits him all over again. Jeremy’s warming lube between both hands.

He feels his eyes go lidded when Jeremy brushes his dick with a stray finger. There’s something ridiculously pleasant about being jerked off by someone who’s already satisfied.

(Not that a handjob from someone who’s turned on _isn’t_ fucking awesome, either, but... Jeremy’s practically _radiating_ contentment. It makes his heart hurt.)

“Oh, Jesus,” Ryan whispers, clenching his whole jaw when Jeremy finally grips him. “You’re… You’re _amazing_.”

Jeremy shushes him, and bites down on his bottom lip gently. Ryan can feel callouses, carefully yet firmly sliding back and forth over his length, and wonders what kind of sports Jeremy does. They can’t all be from climbing the lighting rig.

He lets an insistent groan slip over Jeremy’s tongue, and winds his fingers into that ridiculously green patch of hair. A familiar warm sensation is spreading through his lower torso. He feels washed out from the force of his own pulse, like shaking out a limb that‘s full of pins and needles. How the hell does Jeremy do it?

How does he make Ryan feel so at ease?

There’s no excess of self-consciousness to complicate matters. No whiplash-inducing attitude switches, between scalding and freezing. It’s easy, and casual, and untroubled. Dripping with fulfilment and lazy satisfaction.

Jeremy bites down on Ryan’s lower lip again when he starts to move irregularly; the slight pain goes straight to his groin. He pushes up into the fixed pressure Jeremy’s hands are creating, and barely notices the chain of tiny, persistent moans he’s letting escape, each a higher register than the last, until he shivers, and cums, and Jeremy’s making sure he rides it out until he’s totally finished.

He hopes Jeremy is gonna stay and sleep in his bed.

“...Fuck,” Ryan says, after a short break when he tries to remember how to breathe properly. His voice cracks.

“Yup.”

“I’ve… I’ve got a towel across from the nightstand. Might have makeup on...”

“Ew, gross. Makeup’s a deal breaker,” Jeremy says, and his eyes twinkle, and holy shit, Ryan doesn’t mean it when he mumbles _I hate you_. Jeremy wipes off his palms, and dabs at what lube managed to escape onto the bedsheets; he presses the towel into Ryan’s exhausted hands, then, so that he can clean himself off.

Ryan throws the towel, and the bottle of lube, onto the floor. They join his discarded heap of clothes.

“Slob.”

“It’s my room. Go fuck yourself.”

“You just did it for me,” Jeremy says predictably, and then his expression comically widens, all repressed glee and wonder: “we just fucked each other. We _fucked_.”

“Mmmmyeah,” Ryan says, “I was there.”

Jeremy huffs with laughter into Ryan’s hair, and runs a _very_ warm hand up his ribs. “...It was nice.”

“It _was_ nice. You always make me feel how peace makes me feel,” Ryan tells him.

“Oh, I actually kind of get what you mean! That’s so sweet.”

Ryan decides to bite the bullet and possibly ruin the discussion. “So... Is this just a sex thing?”

“No,” Jeremy says immediately. “It’s more like… I wanna know your birthday, and your favourite snacks. And maybe I even wanna watch musicals with you. West Side Story, or whatever.”

“If you make a ‘Something's Coming’ joke, I’m gonna kick you out.”

Jeremy laughs again. Ryan thinks it might be his favourite sound ever, so he drops a half-assed kiss onto the exposed skin where Jeremy’s jaw meets the bottom of his earlobe.

“Are you staying?”

“Yeah, if that’s okay,” Jeremy says, and Ryan pulls back, to give him a look that says, _of course it’s okay, you idiot_. “Oh, nice. Can I set an alarm?”

“You don’t have to stay if you have plans tomorrow.”

“Ah, it’s something in the evening, but I’m gonna need to head back at some point, to shower and change and stuff? I don’t know, man, I’ve never been in the _audience_ for a recital before, I have no idea what the dress code is.”

Ryan props himself up on his elbows.

“A recital? Is it the dance recital?”

“Uh… _Yeah_. How did you know that?”

“I’m going too,” Ryan grins, “my friend Meg is in the dance troupe.”

Jeremy looks at him sharply. “Meg Turney? As in… Meg Turney who’s dating my roommate?”

“Gavin’s your _roommate--?!_ ”

“Well, no, not _now!_ ” Jeremy snorts. “He comes back, like, once every two weeks! He basically lives in her dorm, I don’t know.”

“How the hell do you put up with Gavin?!”

“Are you kidding? Me, him, and Michael hang out all the fuckin’ time. Gavin calls us his ‘lads’.”

“Michael, too? Jesus _Christ_. I bet you know all my friends. I bet you already know the whole of my dorm! God, _that’s_ how you knew that fucking Panic! At The Disco song... Jeremy, I hate you.”

“Hate you too, pal,” Jeremy grins, his dimples deep in his face with surprise, “I hate you so much that I’m setting the alarm for, like, ten in the morning.”

Ryan pulls a hell of a grimace.

“...I’ll blow you in the shower.”

“Done.”

The last thing Ryan sees in the lamplight, before he lets the darkness of the early morning descend on them, is Jeremy’s eyes crinkling with laughter. It keeps happening, and he doesn’t know if he’s ever gonna get tired of it.

It seems like he blinks, and then it’s significantly lighter and louder; Jeremy has musical chimes as his alarm. He tries to sit up, but there are arms around his middle that tighten in protest.

“Bluhughghgh,” gurgles Jeremy, from somewhere between Ryan’s shoulder blades.

“Get up, you asshole,” Ryan croaks, “I’m hungry.”

“Are you gonna make me breakfast?”

“Nope. But I’ll make you put on pants and choose your own breakfast.”

“You’re the _worst,_ ” Jeremy decides, and releases him from his vice-like embrace.

Ryan tosses him a clean pair of sweatpants, pulls on a pair himself (as well as last night’s t-shirt), and leads his bleary shower partner into the kitchenette.

“Heya, Geoff.”

“Oh, hi, Jeremy,” says Geoff, with his mouth full. Apparently he never went to bed, because he’s wearing the clothes he wore to the party, and isn’t sober enough yet to realise stealing Pop Tarts from Gus is a bad idea.

He looks up as they enter the doorway, and doesn’t seem to notice, or care, that Ryan’s frozen in his tracks.

“I didn't know you were staying, man.”

“I can’t believe you,” he says plainly to Jeremy, who snorts and takes a seat opposite Geoff. “How did we never ever meet before the show? You know _everyone_ I know.”

“Beats the hell outta me,” Jeremy shrugs, at the same time that Geoff says, “because you’re a loser who never hangs out with us.”

He ignores that last part, and grabs two bowls and spoons from his cupboard.

“You know, maybe we knew all along that you’d get together and be really annoying,” Geoff decides, watching him set down the crockery. “Look at this shit. You hooked up one time and you’re already being fucking _domestic_. Ugh.”

“Hey, Jeremy, d’ya wanna have shower sex later?”

“Hell _yes_.”

“Oh, _nooooo_ ,” Geoff whinges, “I thought I wouldn’t have to hear any more shower bullshit now that you don’t gotta sing anymore. Please don’t fuck in the shower. _Please_.”

“Too late,” Jeremy murmurs out of the corner of his mouth. Geoff chokes on some unanticipated crumbs.

Oh, yeah, shower things are probably gonna happen a lot more from now on. Ryan laughs outright into the refrigerator, and makes a mental note to message Meg later when Jeremy disappears to get clothes; she does want to know everything, after all. And if she already knows Jeremy, then he’s sure he’ll receive a very fair assessment from her at the end of his ( _abridged_ ) retelling of events.

“You know,” says Geoff, coughing and jabbing a thumb at Ryan, “I liked him better when he wasn’t so confident. You’re the worst, Jeremy Dooley.”

Ryan checks the date on the milk.

Jeremy says, “Ryan’s _way_ more interesting than you ever made him out to be! I can’t believe you _lied_ to me like this--”

“He’s a prissy actor bitch.”

“Maybe to you, man--”

And Ryan grins as he closes the door. He wonders if Jeremy will be extra enthusiastic later if he sings the chorus of that Linkin Park song in the shower, and then kind of wants to lie in bed and talk about nothing with him again. Maybe he’ll buy a box of Jeremy’s preferred cereal brand, or whatever, because life stuff is weird like that.

Gus wonders into the kitchenette looking particularly haggard and hungover. He fake-gags when he sees Ryan and Jeremy, now seated rather closely to one another - and then moves to strangle Geoff when he realises the man’s been stealing his food again.

“I think I might wear a button down or something,” Jeremy ponders, ignoring Geoff’s shrieking. Ryan’s heart has a brief episode over how the man handles everyone’s idiotic antics. Meg’s gonna be thrilled when she can finally throw statements like _your boyfriend’s an asshole_ back at him.

And he decides that if he’s gonna go down _that_ particular route, he’ll probably have to start listening to more songs with raps in, from now on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Songs in this chapter:
> 
> The Human League - Together in Electric Dreams  
> The The - This Is The Day

**Author's Note:**

> Beta read by the wonderful [happyexothermicreaction](http://happyexothermicreaction.tumblr.com/). Cheers pal! Here's [my tumblr](http://futureboy-ao3.tumblr.com), too, if you're interested.
> 
> [bara-kick drew some amazing art](https://bara-kick.tumblr.com/post/162832650650/a-very-cute-scene-of-these-two-idiots) for this, too, and I actually die every time I look at it. Ahhhhhh.


End file.
